Working the system: Educating environmental and sustainability educators

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Working the system Educating environmental and
sustainability educators

Dr Jo-Anne Ferreira, Prof. Julie Davis Ms Lisa
Ryan
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Rationale for project

• International trend in EfS towards a whole-school
  approach to sustainability (AuSSI EcoSchools
  Green Schools).
• Teacher education long recognised but little
  utilised as a tool for EfS.
• Need for new models of achieving change in
  pre-service teacher education to provide
  opportunities for all teachers to gain skills in
  EfS.

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Background (Stage 1 - 2006)

• Review of initiatives used to bring about change
  in teacher education (particularly EE/EFS)
• 3 models identified, each with benefits and
  limitations
• Resource development and adaptation (sometimes
  collaborative)
• Action research
• Whole of system
• New model proposed - to concurrently develop
  shared understanding and change across a range of
  sub-systems within a system

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Taking a systems approach

• Holistic focus
• Identifiable elements and the relationships
  between them
• System boundary and environment (limits and
  exchanges)
• Dynamic not static because self-identified
• Hierarchical levels
• Systems and sub-systems
• Ability to influence and/or control

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Systemic thinking and action research

• Interactions between elements
• Understanding the role of the parts
• Focus on relationships between parts rather than
  parts themselves
• Top down (supportive policy environment) and
  bottom up (capacity building)
• Understanding complexity - not linear cause and
  effect delays in seeing outcomes
• Hubs
• Nodes or connectors in a system (key agents of
  changes/six degrees of separation/ Kevin Bacon)
• Leverage points in a system
• Participatory action research
• Active, joint examination
• Seeking deep engagement and change

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Stage 2 Pilot of whole-of-system change model
2007-2009

• Model sought to engage hubs within and across a
  teacher education system
• Pilot in two States in Australia - Queensland and
  Northern Territory
• Very different contextual factors (large and
  small populations, indigenous perspectives,
  different stakeholders, leaders with different
  levels of experience, etc.)

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Seeking change

• 3 sub-systems all seeking to change
• National system through ARIES
• State systems through team leaders
• Individual subsystems through subsystem leaders
• 3 sub-systems working across,up and down
  and engaging with each other through
• workshops (systems mapping change management
  systemic thinking mapping lessons learnt)
• community of inquiry
• monitoring and evaluation process

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The Queensland/iQuest Experience

• Context
• Environmental education centres
• 1992 P-12 Environmental Education Curriculum
  Guide
• 1993 Environmental Education An agenda for
  pre-service teacher education in Queensland
• 2002 Queensland Sustainable Schools Initiative
• 2006 MACER report on Education for Sustainable
  Futures

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iQuest Aims

• Build on and support what was already happening
  across Queensland
• Formalise already existing networks and integrate
  these
• Build communication channels across the system
  and out from the system

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What was done?
Curriculum support, teacher support, access to
resource
Schools
Context, prac places, teacher mentors
Clients, experts
Trained teachers, experts
Curriculum frameworks, Xxxxxx frameworks
Teacher education institution
Queensland studies authority
Curriculum to teach opportunity to influence
curriculum
Teachers trained in curriculum. Other experts to
advise on educ theory
Teachers trained to good standard
Advocacy platform
Resources, advice, advocacy for content
Best practice curriculum
Opportunity to Influence curriculum
Resources, experts xxx frameworks
Expert advisors, advocacy groups
Professional associations
Resources, experts in content
NGOs Advocacy
Policy frameworks, contexts, schools
Leadership, policy guidelines
Expert advice resources
Systemic provider of schools, client, policy
framework
Information advice
Advice teacher support
Resources, experts in content
Expert advice
Expert advice
Resources, experts
Education Queensland
DNRW/ EPA

• Trained teachers
• Standards
• Accreditation of courses
• Registration

BTR
Critical systems mapping
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What was done?

• Visioning a better system
• Networking, partnership building and resource
  sharing
• Stakeholder workshops (PD, mentoring, action
  research, organisational change and systems
  thinking)
• Unifying disparate projects and initiatives and
  capitalising on existing ones
• Leveraging influence (hubs status of project
  media)
• Collaborative development of Student Teacher
  Charter using Facebook presentation to Minister
  for Education at Student Forum

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Benefits and surprises

• Increased contact with other related community
  groups
• Events lead to good publicity
• Provided an opportunity to meet with staff and
  have professional conversations about their
  roles, their understandings -shared pedagogy
• Facilitated the building of a support team from
  faculty
• Approach was contextually flexible and
  participatory not a prescribed recipe
• Pre-service teachers enjoyed the sense of
  community developed cross-institutionally through
  the Facebook site
• Green is the new black so iQuEST members could
  capitalise on broader community interest in
  sustainability.
• Getting people on board is easier when you have
  something to offer and a way to reduce peoples
  workload
• Three universities (will) have EfS as an
  interdisciplinary theme
• Provided an opportunity to share ideas and have a
  team to provide advice and support

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Achievements

• Supported key agents of change through network
• EFS has been included in a range of additional
  courses not previously associated with EfS
• Built capacity of teacher educators more broadly
• Small policy changes have occurred within
  individual sub-systems
• Improved communication across the system
• Used media to build profile for EfS in
  sub-systems and system
• Opened lines of communication with additional
  systemic partners

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Lessons

• Agents of change
• Are they the hubs in the network or system (check
  with others/triangulate)?
• What are their specific connections?
• Do they have power to influence change?
• Do they see themselves as having this power and
  are they willing to use it (building capacity and
  expertise)?
• What is their accountability to the project?
• Systems mapping
• Vitally important - to do and redo as the project
  proceeds
• Can be used to build a shared vision for change
• Some participants - identified as key agents of
  change and or stakeholders - saw no links or no
  common ground with the aim of the research and
  were difficult to engage
• Others had common ground and saw links but saw
  themselves as critical friends - no
  accountability to funding agency/ the project
• Need to be clear about the system and its
  boundaries - what can and cannot be influenced
  and changed

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• Systemic networking
• Incentives
• Point of engagement - top down and bottom up
  important
• Communications to build profile and potential for
  change
• Need shared vision
• May need to build expertise
• Funding (short vs longer term)
• Autonomy seen as as positive to participants but
  not to funders
• Monitoring and evaluation needs to be a learning
  exercise and not become onerous
• Mismatch between paradigms
• Respect
• Trust

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• Theory and change
• Participants understood action research theory
  but doing it was too messy and time consuming for
  some participants
• Systemic theory is complex - many levels of
  intersection and interaction. Need to focus on a
  bounded system and keep it - and ones
  expectations - small
• Be realistic about what can be influenced within
  and outside of a system
• Whatever one does will have an impact on the
  system as it is part of the system

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Key insights

• Capacity for change
• Conceptual
• Personal
• Working systemically
• Takes time
• Relationship building
• Need a shared vision jointly developed
• Organisational change

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Next stages

• Stage 3 project undertaken in two other States,
  New South Wales and the Australian Capital
  Territory. Five actions enabling change were
  identified
• Collaboration
• Development of a shared vision and ethos of
  sustainability and sustainable practice
• Connecting existing EfS content and practices
• Using experiential and active learning processes
• Creating opportunities for integrated programs

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• Stage 4 beginning in 2012 is an Australian
  Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) funded
  project developing a systems network of all
  institutions in one State and setting up systems
  networks within and between all States and
  Territories across Australia.
• Also a concurrent ALTC Turnaround Leadership for
  Sustainability in Higher Education project

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• What does your system look like what is the
  system and context? What are the sub-systems?
  What are the relationships between the
  sub-systems? Is there a shared vision/goals?

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